The Guardian is launching a series of articles on Monday on the Tax Gap. As Polly Toynbee says in her article in the Guardian today: On Monday the Guardian reports on its investigation which reveals corporate tax avoidance on a gargantuan scale. Respectable FTSE 100 companies, household brands that are cornerstones of Britishness, have for Read the Rest…

The following press comment has been issued by Jersey Finance: Jersey Finance notes the inaccurate comments made today by the TUC with regard to the UK banking sector’s offshore activities. There is no credible or practical evidence to suggest that international financial centres threaten financial stability. Jersey is a well-regulated jurisdiction which meets or exceeds Read the Rest…

The second would be a state-funded programme to build 100,000 houses a year, which would provide homes for those who need them and create 50,000 jobs in the construction industry. "That is the language people will understand – not mechanistic but emotionally in tune with people who are suffering."

The Big 4 have spent years demanding access t markets. And then this happens in India: “During interrogation [the auditors, Subramani Gopala Krishnan and Talluri Srinivas] confessed their involvement in the crime,” deputy superintendent Rao said in a document requesting a Hyderabad court to remand them in custody for 15 days. “They also colluded . Read the Rest…

The BBC web site offered the rebuttals made by the four banks which were the subject of the research published by the TUC on their use of tax haven / secrecy jurisdictions. The responses are amusing: The banks in question refuted any charge of tax avoidance. Heaven forbid they should ever do such a thing Read the Rest…

From Bloomberg: Britain’s main banks should provide more detail of their activities in offshore financial centers such as the Cayman Islands and Jersey, a union group said. Barclays Plc, HSBC Holdings Plc, Lloyds Banking Group Plc and Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc together have more than 1,000 subsidiaries in tax havens, according to a Read the Rest…

KPMG has published its latest survey on the UK’s tax competitiveness. It’s message is clear: it says the UK is slipping behind. But look who it compares us to: Let’s be blunt: Ireland, Luxembourg and the Netherlands are all small states who are tax havens. It’s an impossible business model for the UK to emulate. Read the Rest…

These are my links for January 28th through January 29th: FT.com / UK / Business – Call to make bail-out banks list havens – More coverage for the TUC research on bank use of tax havens Of course what they're doing is legal But we know that 40,000 people admitted using them to facilitate their Read the Rest…

I was discussing the International Accounting Standards Board and International Financial Reporting Standards projects with an accountant of high repute this morning. Our discussion was framed within the context of the current economic crisis. We agreed that the IASB project had the supposed goal of facilitating globalisation and of reducing the cost of capital. We Read the Rest…